ORIGIN OF THE HORSE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2411, 28 September 1886, Page 2

ORIGIN OF THE HORSE.

Much interest has boen felt in discoveries relating to the natural history of the horse, of tke remote anceatiy of which noble animal much is unknown. Sometime aijo it was learned that America was the original home of tho horso, which had, in the earliest form of whioh distinct remains havo been found, four toes and a splint bone, the rudiment of the fifth too, Equine animals with thrco toes on each front log, aud those, with two to, have loft unquestionable evidence of their existence. -

In a rocont issue of tho Edinburgh Scotsman, is an articlu which says that six or BBven wild apocies belonging to tho family of horaeß aro known, but tueao all belong to that section of the family of which tho aaa is the typo, and which are distingiiished from tho true horses by the absence of wartu upon the hind legs, by contracted hoofs, and by tho long hairs of the tail being confined to the extremity of that organ. Recently, howevor, tho Russian, traveller Praevalsky, whilo journeying in the Hungarian desert, lying between the Altai and Tianshan mountains of Thibet, discovered a new species of wild horse, which seems to have more claim than any of the already known, wild kinds to bo regarded as the primitive stock of the domestic horse, Like the latter,,it has warts on tho hind logs as well as. on tho forelegs; it has also broad hoof, while the long hairs of the tail began about midway, bomg iii this latter respect; therefore, intermediate between the horse and the aßs. It differs from the true horse, howevor, in having a short 'oreot mano, and in the absence of the-forelock, whilo it has not the stripe down tho back found in many horses. Przevalaky's horse keep's to the wildest parts of the desert, when;' it is met with in troops of from five to fifteen individuals, loo: by an old stallion —the other monitors of the troop being apparently mares. -They are hard tu approach, being shy In disposition and possessing highly developed orgaus of sight, hearing, and smell. Przevalsky only met with tjro herds: " in vain he and his companjoppuired at those animals. With hea<l and uplifted tail the staUiim &ppe*rw] liko lightening, with tlw'irapl the herd after him." A single specif, subse-

qtfCititlT produced,, is now in St. .ipetcrsDerg museum, and in the only one in Europe. ■ It has since been pointed out by Mr W. Wafts, thi)t the figures of .the,horse found incised on antlers iu the ca'Ve of La Made* laine bear a dose reseniblanc&tO- Prival* sky'a horae. There is,.he says, "the same massive head, the wine Ions? mane, absence of forelock, pointed, eats, short body jaud powerful legs, while there seems oven an indication that the long hairs of the tail spring fitst. from th» middle of that organ, Rich as prehistoric America appears to -have been in horses, they had, as already stated; become utterly extinction!!before . the origiu of tiio Spaniard. Their introduction by the settlors led in a compafai tively short period of time to vestucking of the entire 'l'outiiijjß. '■ Straying from their masters, or, as happened,abandoned by thoin when a settlement was broken up, tbo horses took kiiidly to the rich praiiio and pampas, whore they multiplied exceedingly. Iu 1537. they wore firat lauded at Bubuob Ayrcs, aud little more than forty years afterwards wild individuals were to be found at the Straits of Magellan. They scoured the plains in vast herds. A thousand horse—and none to ride—

With flowing tail,, and Hying mano, us Byron describes them in "Mazoppa," The Indians of both North and South America managed to capture and claim for their use horses out of these formidable troops, fltid ninny savage tribes, to whom i)>e horse was an entirely new animal, became the moat daring and accomplished Jiorßomen' in the world. The horse iv,is also unknowu in-', Australia until introduced !>v IGurup&aii'' settlors. It then found congenial conditions, and individual ones escaping froii) man's control sm>n reverted W the wild state. Tlioso in bo scarcely populated a. contjnout have multiplied until, like many other " home" animals in the colonies.they litlvo become a nuisance. Brumbies, ua these Australiau wild hnraes aro called, do cousj®; able mischief to the settlers by ent™ig away their domesticated brethren and so deteriorating the breed' Hownumeroua they have grown in certain districts is shown by the fact that in 1875 do fewer tlrnn seven thousand were shot at a station in Now South Wiileß.

It is held by mnny tlwt the domesticated horso with all its various characteristics of ehapo, eizo, and disposition lias dosconded from q, single wild form inhabiting "the roof of tho world." Its spread into regions so remote must of itaoli have had considerable influence m producing varietal changes, It Ims been observed tbiit everywhere in the mountainous Hyious and in islands the horse has dwindled down into tho small pony. Iceland and ScotJaudi-Corsica and Sardinia, tho mountainous regions of Northern Europe, and tho Cordilleras of America all possess their native ponies. The horse was only introduced into th&'/ Falkland Island in 17G4, yet it already become so greatly deteriorated in size and strength that;' for huuting the wild cattle of the inlands,' horsta havo to bo imported froui Lit Plata, This dwarfing of tho horse in mountainous audtohlar situations is greatly attributed t/Mmt . of nutritious or sufficiently varied frod. Infiueutial as the conditions of life may thus have been in modifying the horso, it , is scarcely possible to doubt, as Darwin remarks, " that the long-continued selection of qualities sorvieeablo to man has been the chief agent in tho formation of the several breeds of the horse."